Cabinet Support helps growth of Local Nurse Led Rehabilitation Unit

Blackpool based *Social Enterprise Spiral Health recently secured Government support funding which helped the entrepreneurial team of public servants to develop and grow

Spiral Health CIC staff with Investors in People Award

PRLog - Feb. 22, 2013 - KENDAL, U.K. -- The UK Government are supporting the ambition of a growing number of entrepreneurial staff across a diverse range of public services from Health Care and Adult Social Care to Youth Services. The *Mutual Support Programme (MSP) launched through the Cabinet Office announced in 2012, 1m worth of professional advice and support for 21 live and developing mutuals of which Spiral Health in Bispham, Blackpool was one!

“Applying for support from the MSP” said Tracey Bush, MD of Spiral Health CIC “was quick and easy and I would encourage others interested in ‘spinning out’ from the public sector to take advantage of the help and advice”

Spiral Health CIC, which ‘spun out’ from the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in April 2012, has only been established as a *social enterprise for ten months providing Nurse led Rehabilitation and Therapy Services, but has notched up exceptional achievement putting them in the top four per cent of community interest companies in the country.

The programme award provides organisations with access to professional support which they otherwise could not afford. The advice and project management information is then publicly available through mutual sharing knowledge data base

The funding for Spiral Health provided a support package from ‘Make it Happen’ a local SME with under 20 employees which enabled Spiral Health to identify where they could expand their business, make savings and win future contracts.

Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude said “We know frontline public servants can run services incredibly effectively as mutual businesses improving productivity and efficiency.

Momentum is growing” he added “more and more entrepreneurial public servants want to take control of the services they provide and we will continue to support them”

The programme of support came at an opportune time for Spiral Health and helped to develop its services and facilities to a wider community base in Blackpool &The Fylde

“Although Spiral Health is an independent Community interest Company” added Tracey Bush Spiral Health’s MD “and separate to the Foundation Trust, we have worked to develop and grow our business for the benefit of the local community in which we work and the people that access our services. The £45,000 MSP worth of support has certainly helped to accelerate our growth and benefit our staff and the community”

*Social Enterprise UK is the national body for social enterprise. Social enterprises are businesses that exist for a social or environmental purpose. When they profit-society profits. Together with their members they are the voice for social enterprise in the UK. Members are local grass-roots organisations and multi-million pound businesses that operate internationally. What unites them is their commitment to changing the world through business. For more information, visit www.socialenterprise.org.uk.

*The government is supporting public servants who want to form mutual or social enterprises with 10m Mutual Support Programme, Mutual Information Services Website and dedicated hotline 0845 5390 543.

*The mutual support programme is helping organisations to develop by providing professional expertise and advice that they are normally not able to access. The money has been used to buy suppliers to deliver support to fledgling mutuals needs, allowing the government to negotiate the best deals and build a valuable sharing knowledge data base. The programme will also allow the government to build a strong evidence base of what works and what doesn’t for other upcoming mutuals that are coming through the system.